From a golf trip to the woodshop; bottle stoppers

A friend of ours from Canton Ohio invited me and my son to play at several high end golf courses early this Summer. Knowing I wanted to make something to give him for hosting the two of us, I contacted a local Canton arborist prior to the trip. I really wanted to find some Ohio buckeye seeing that our host is an alum from OSU and it is their state tree.

My timing couldn’t have been better in that the arborist was just getting ready to take down a local buckeye and he said he would put aside a some pieces for me. During the trip I snuck away one evening to the arborist’s house and picked up the wood…at no cost, he was really a great guy.

So I’m driving around with a handfull of buckeye logs in the back of my SUV and I know our host saw the wood back there when we unloaded and loaded our golf bags. He must of thought I was nuts driving around with the wood back there with our golf clubs. He didn’t ask and I didn’t say anything.

Firestone C.C. has several courses and we played two of those courses as well as his home course where he resides. I really wanted to capture the iconic water tower that Firestone is known for, so I tried to emulate the water tower with the golf ball on the top for that stopper top. I inlaid a golf ball marker on the top. The second golf stopper I just went with an easy shape to make and for practicality of use. I finished both of those two golf stoppers with CA glue as part of PSI’s I Can’t Believe This Finish Starter Set. It really came out nice and was easy to achieve that super high gloss finish.

I then made a base/holder for the two golf stoppers. I simply cut a basic shape on the bandsaw and used some sanding machines and hand sanding to get the final shape and finish I liked. I finished the holder with the Beall buffing system and then drilled a set of holes the same diameter as a wine bottle neck so the fit would be snug.

The buckeye wood sat outside for several months before I dried it out (microwave) and worked with it. It developed some beautiful gray streaking throughout it, I guess from being out in the heat. It is very soft wood and not the easiest to work with, but the significance of that particular species was important for these pieces. The leftover pieces that have grey in it will come in handy in the future for some intarsia pieces…grey is not the easiest color to find along the east coast.

The last picture was a stopper I made for the arborist as a thanks for his time and effort and getting me the buckeye wood.